CNBC reports that Craig Wright, who claimed in 2016 that he had invented Bitcoin, was facing legal suits in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida for allegedly attempting to swindle Dave Kleiman out of thousands of Bitcoins and other intellectual assets. Although Dave died in 2013, the lawsuit was filed by Craig’s brother, Ira Kleiman, who alleged that Wright used deceptive pacts and signatures to claim ownership of Bitcoins mined and owned by Dave.

Craig forged a series of contracts that purported to transfer Dave’s assets to Craig and/or companies controlled by him. Craig backdated these contracts and forged Dave’s signature on them,

-Ira Kleiman said in the complaint.

According to the court documents, Wright and Kleiman were partners and had formed a firm, W&K Info Defense Research LLC, to mine Bitcoins in 2011. Ira says that his brother owned between 50 and 100 percent of the company. The suit claims that Kleiman estate holds the rights to Bitcoin and IP rights valued at $5,118,266,427.50.

Uncertainty Over who Created Bitcoin

According to BNN, the court filings say that it is uncertain whether Wright, Kleiman or both were the ones who invented Bitcoin. The documents, however, say that the two were highly involved in Bitcoin from its beginning, and that they acquired a huge number of Bitcoins form 2009 to 2013.

Wright claimed in interviews and blog posts to be one of the main participants of the team that invented the Bitcoin software, using the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto”. After further scrutiny from the public and sceptics, Wright did not offer any evidence to prove that he was indeed the infamous Nakamoto, however.

In the suit, Ira Kleiman states that Wright deceptively generated three contracts and utilized a computer-generated signature to falsely claim the ownership of Bitcoins mined by Dave Kleiman. Ira Kleiman includes email traffic between himself and Wight, in which the latter agrees to be holding about 300,000 bitcoins on behalf of Kleiman. Velvel Freedman and Kyle Roche are the plaintiff’s lawyers.

Do you think Craig Wright is the real Bitcoin inventor? Share your thoughts in the comments section.